The Monastery of Stoudios , more fully Monastery of Saint John the Forerunner "at Stoudios" ( ‹See Tfd› Greek : Μονή του Αγίου Ιωάννη του Προδρόμου εν τοις Στουδίου , translit. Monē tou Hagiou Iōannē tou Prodromou en tois Stoudiou ), often shortened to Stoudios , Studion or Stoudion ( Latin : Studium ), was a Greek Orthodox monastery in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul ), the capital of the Byzantine Empire . The residents of the monastery were referred to as Stoudites or Studites . Although the monastery has been derelict for half a millennium, the laws and customs of the Stoudion were taken as models by the monks of Mount Athos and of many other monasteries of the Orthodox world ; even today they have influence.
28-636: The ruins of the monastery are situated not far from the Propontis (Sea of Marmara) in the section of Istanbul called Psamathia , today's Koca Mustafa Paşa . It was founded in 462 by the consul Flavius Studius , a Roman patrician who had settled in Constantinople, and was consecrated to Saint John the Baptist . Its first monks came from the monastery of the Acoemetae . The Stoudites gave
56-657: A storm on 29 December 1999, the Russian oil tanker Volgoneft broke in two in the Sea of Marmara, spilling more than 1,500 tonnes of oil into the water. In 2021 the shores of the Sea of Marmara were disfigured by marine mucilage - nicknamed 'sea snot' - caused, at least in part, by the dumping of untreated waste into the water. Towns and cities on the coast of the Sea of Marmara include: Bursa Province Çanakkale Province Tekirdağ Province Cloister A cloister (from Latin claustrum , "enclosure")
84-541: A triangular shape, with chapels at the corners, in conscious representation of the Trinity . A square cloister sited against the flank of the abbey church was built at Inden (816) and the abbey of St. Wandrille at Fontenelle (823–833). At Fulda , a new cloister (819) was sited to the liturgical west of the church "in the Roman manner" familiar from the forecourt of Old St. Peter's Basilica because it would be closer to
112-516: Is 1,370 m (4,490 ft). The Sea of Marmara is named after the largest island on its south side, called Marmara Island because it is rich in marble ( Greek μάρμᾰρον , mármaron 'marble'). In classical antiquity , it was known as the Propontis , from the Greek words pro 'before' and pontos 'sea', reflecting the fact that the Ancient Greeks used to sail through it to reach
140-419: Is a covered walk, open gallery, or open arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cathedral or church, commonly against a warm southern flank, usually indicates that it is (or once was) part of a monastic foundation, "forming a continuous and solid architectural barrier... that effectively separates the world of the monks from that of
168-530: Is especially celebrated for its famous school of calligraphy which was established by Theodore. The art of manuscript illumination was cultivated, with many brilliant products of the monastic scriptorium now residing in Venice , Vatican City , and Moscow (e.g., Chludov Psalter ). The Theodore Psalter , created at the monastery in the twelfth century is in the collection of the British Library . In
196-673: Is privately owned by the Koç family of industrialists. The North Anatolian Fault runs under the sea and has triggered several major earthquakes , such as those in Izmit and Düzce in August and November 1999 respectively. The August 1999 earthquake is commonly referred to as the Marmara Earthquake since its epicentre lay under the Sea and most of the places worst affected by the quake and ensuing tsunami lay along its shores. During
224-840: The Susurluk , Biga (Granicus), and Gönen Rivers also reduces the salinity of the sea, though with less effect than on the Black Sea. With little land in Thrace draining southward, almost all of these rivers flow from Anatolia . There are two main groups of islands in the Sea of Marmara. To the north lie the Princes' Islands , an archipelago made up of the inhabited islands of Kınaliada , Burgazada , Heybeliada , Büyükada and Sedef Adası and several uninhabited islands including Sivriada , Yassıada , Kaşıkadası and Tavşanadası . The inhabited islands are readily accessible by ferry from both
252-617: The Aegean Sea [A line joining Kum Kale (26°11'E) and Cape Helles ]. On the Northeast . A line joining Cape Rumili with Cape Anatoli (41°13′N). The sea's south coast is heavily indented and includes the Gulf of İzmit ( Turkish : İzmit Körfezi ), the Gulf of Gemlik ( Turkish : Gemlik Körfezi ), the Gulf of Bandırma ( Turkish : Bandırma Körfezi ), and the Gulf of Erdek ( Turkish : Erdek Körfezi ). The surface salinity of
280-652: The Black Sea , which they called Pontos . In Greek mythology , a storm on the Propontis brought the Argonauts back to an island they had left, precipitating a battle in which either Jason or Heracles killed King Cyzicus , who had mistaken them for his Pelasgian enemies. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Sea of Marmara as follows: On the West . The Dardanelles limit of
308-586: The Sea of Marmora or the Marmara Sea , is a small inland sea located entirely within the borders of Turkey . It connects the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea via the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, separating Turkey’s European and Asian sides. It has an area of 11,350 km (4,380 sq mi), and its dimensions are 280 km × 80 km (174 mi × 50 mi). Its greatest depth
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#1732772449049336-579: The serfs and workmen, whose lives and works went forward outside and around the cloister." Cloistered (or claustral) life is also another name for the monastic life of a monk or nun . The English term enclosure is used in contemporary Catholic church law translations to mean cloistered, and some form of the Latin parent word "claustrum" is frequently used as a metonymic name for monastery in languages such as German. Cloistered clergy refers to monastic orders that strictly separate themselves from
364-535: The European and Asian shores of İstanbul and the entire archipelago forms part of the conurbation. To the south lie the Marmara Islands , an archipelago made up of the eponymous Marmara Island and three other inhabited islands – Avşa , Paşalimanı and Ekinlik – as well as of seventeen largely uninhabited islands including the prison island of Imralı whose most famous prisoner, since 1999, has been
392-541: The Marmara averages about 22 parts per thousand, which is slightly more than that of the Black Sea , but only about two-thirds that of most oceans . The water is much more saline at the bottom of the sea, averaging a salinity of around 38 parts per thousand, similar to that of the Mediterranean Sea . This high-density saline water does not migrate to the surface as is also the case with the Black Sea. Water from
420-893: The Orthodox doctrines against the Iconoclasts at the Second Ecumenical Council in Nicaea (787). His successor was Theodore the Studite to whom the monastery owes most of its fame, and who especially fostered academic and spiritual study. He reformed the monastery based not only on the ideas of Basil the Great , but also of Pachomios , the ascetics of the Gazan deserts (e.g. Barsanuphius , John , Dorotheus ) and John Sinaites . During St. Theodore's administration also
448-544: The PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan . These islands lie within Balıkesir province and are most readily accessible from Tekirdağ in Thrace or Erdek on the southern shore of the Sea of Marmara. In high summer additional ferries travel to Avşa and Marmara Islands from the centre of İstanbul to facilitate a growing tourist trade. There are also a few individual islands elsewhere in the Sea of Marmara, such as Koç Adası, off Tuzla , which
476-648: The Stoudion. In 1204, the monastery was destroyed by the Crusaders and was not fully restored until 1290, by Constantine Palaiologos . The Russian pilgrims Anthony ( c. 1200) and Stephen ( c. 1350) were amazed by the size of the monastic grounds. It is thought that the cloister sheltered as many as 700 monks at the time. The greater part of the monastery was again destroyed when the Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453. The 5th-century monastery's church, which has
504-666: The Stoudios came to an end at this time. In the middle of the eleventh century, during the administration of Abbot Simeon, a monk named Niketas Stethatos , a disciple of Symeon the New Theologian , criticized some customs of the Latin Church in two books which he wrote on the use of unleavened bread , the Sabbath , and the marriage of priests . As regards the intellectual life of the monastery in other directions, it
532-656: The affairs of the external world. The early medieval cloister had several antecedents: the peristyle court of the Greco-Roman domus , the atrium and its expanded version that served as forecourt to early Christian basilicas , and certain semi-galleried courts attached to the flanks of early Syrian churches. Walter Horn suggests that the earliest coenobitic communities, which were established in Egypt by Saint Pachomius c. AD 320 , did not result in cloister construction, as there were no lay serfs attached to
560-503: The community of monks, and thus no need for separation within the walled community. Horn finds the earliest prototypical cloisters in some exceptional late fifth-century monastic churches in southern Syria, such as the Convent of Saints Sergius and Bacchus , at Umm-is-Surab (AD 489), and the colonnaded forecourt of the convent of Id-Dêr, but nothing similar appeared in the semi-eremitic Irish monasteries' clustered roundhouses nor in
588-402: The distractions of laymen and servants. Horn offers as early examples Abbot Gundeland's "Altenmünster" of Lorsch abbey (765–774), as revealed in the excavations by Frederich Behn. Lorsch was adapted without substantial alteration from a Frankish nobleman's villa rustica , in a tradition unbroken from late Roman times. Another early cloister, in the abbey of Saint-Riquier (790–799), took
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#1732772449049616-400: The earliest Benedictine collective communities of the West. In the time of Charlemagne ( r. 768–814 ) the requirements of a separate monastic community within an extended and scattered manorial estate led to the development of a "monastery within a monastery" in the form of the locked cloister, an architectural solution allowing the monks to perform their sacred tasks apart from
644-575: The eighth and eleventh centuries, the monastery was the centre of Byzantine religious poetry; a number of the hymns are still used in the Orthodox Church. Besides Theodore and Niketas, a number of other theological writers are known. Three of the Stoudite monks rose to become the ecumenical patriarchs ; and three emperors— Michael V (r. 1041–1042), Michael VII Doukas (r. 1071–1078), and Isaac I Komnenos (r. 1057–1059)—took monastic vows in
672-466: The first proof of their devotion to the Orthodox Faith during the schism of Acacius (484–519); they also remained loyal during the storms of iconoclastic dispute in the eighth and ninth centuries. They were driven from the monastery and the city by Emperor Constantine V (r. 741–775); after his death however, some of them returned. Hegumenos (abbot) Sabas of Stoudios zealously defended
700-469: The monastery grounds, but its activity was suppressed in the wake of the Russian Revolution of 1917 . During the subsequent decades the ruins of the monastery complex were looted by local inhabitants to repair their houses, while the magnificent 13th century pavement still lies open to elements "and disappears slowly but steadily". In 2013 plans were announced that the church, currently a museum,
728-550: The monks were harassed and driven away several times, some of them being put to death. Theodore's pupil, Naukratios, re-established discipline after the Iconoclastic dispute had come to an end. Hegumenos Nicholas (848-845 and 855-858) refused to recognize the Patriarch St. Photios and was on this account imprisoned in his own monastery. He was succeeded by five abbots who recognized the patriarch. The brilliant period of
756-570: The plan of a basilica, was converted by Bayezid II 's equerry, Ilias Bey , into the mosque İmrahor Camii (literally, Mosque of the Equerry ). The ancient structure sustained grave damage from the great fire of 1782; the 1894 Istanbul earthquake also contributed to its ruin. Following the 1894 earthquake, a group of Russian Byzantinist scholars led by Fyodor Uspensky opened the Russian Archaeological Institute on
784-446: Was to be converted into a mosque after a restoration. It was announced in 2023 that restoration of the edifice was due to start later that year and which has been ongoing as of January 2024 [REDACTED] Media related to Monastery of Stoudios at Wikimedia Commons 40°59′46″N 28°55′43″E / 40.99611°N 28.92861°E / 40.99611; 28.92861 Propontis The Sea of Marmara , also known as
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